GPS launch, orbit exercises successful

Sep. 16, 2013 - 03:45AM
|

The third of five launch and early orbit demonstration exercises for the GPS III satellite and Operational Control System (OCX) were successfully completed in late July by Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, according to a Lockheed press release.

“In addition, the industry and customer teams jointly executed mission planning activities, such as orbit determination and the generation of upload command files.”

Exercise 3 expanded on two previous exercises by including a longer mission timeline as well as introducing simulated vehicle and ground anomalies.

“The system responded as designed, and met all of the launch exercise success criteria and successfully demonstrated our anomaly response,” said Matt Gilligan, Raytheon’s GPS OCX program manager and a vice president with Raytheon’s Intelligence, Information and Services business.

Two more readiness exercises and six 24/7 launch rehearsals are planned prior to launch of the first GPS III satellite in 2015.